I have had a few cooking disasters, but not too many. My mother, though I love her dearly, was not a very good cook. Once she discovered the microwave oven, well, things went down hill. Fortunately, that was after I had moved out. Anyway, I had to learn how to cook as a kid.
Eventually I got pretty good at it and really enjoyed it. I can cook a wide variety of things, but focus mostly on Italian and good old fashioned classic American cooking like steaks, burgers various veggies, mashed potatoes, etc. I am great at baking and like to make bread and cake from scratch (I stopped using my bread machine because the bread comes out with a course texture.) Whenever I go to pot lucks and have time to bake, I always get hit up for my German Chocolate Cake and fudge recipes.
When I got married the first time, my first wife actually destroyed three complete sets of cookware in the first two years of our marriage. She had two adolescent children who literally begged me to do the cooking. I think what motivated them was the instinct of self preservation.
My second wife was actually a pretty good cook. She enjoyed cooking and took great pride in adding subtle flavours and interesting contrasts and textures. But, since she was Japanese, she did not make many typical American foods and when she did, they inevitably came out tasting like fish, soy sauce or ginger.
And then there is my son. My son the chef. Really, a professional chef. In the kitchen, he moves
fast. He can slice several carrots and stalks of celery, dice a couple of potatoes, and peal and mince an entire garlic in less than 5 minutes. And all the pieces are the same size and shape! I have seen him cut up a whole chicken in less than a minute and every priece is perfect. He makes absolutely everything from scratch, even yogurt, sour cream and yes (for some lucky lady out there) he makes his chocolate.
When he cooks, he wastes absolutely nothing. When he was living with me while going to culinary school, I gained 15 pounds. Oh my goodness! He has an extremely wide repertoire of dishes that he can make. However, his favorite is Italian (Well, come on, his our last name does not end in a vowell for nothing!
) He loves to make ravioli from scratch. Yum!
When he was here, he made two complete prime ribs (one of 13 punds, the other was 22 pounds) for the Mothers Day dinner nuns at the convent where I attend daily Mass. He had marinated them in brine, wine, and some other spices for 5 days, then slowly roasted them in a smoker with hickory wood. After that, he put a crust on them by broiling them at a very high temperature in the over. They came out perfectly medium rare. Yum!
Whoops, excuse. I just drooled onto my keayboard.
Sounds good. But a flop.
I shouldn’t be laughing, but that is so funny!!!
I think it was the combo…it just tasted really weird.